


Weapons of Mass Distraction

by ALWrites, exolliarmus



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Crack, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Oral Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALWrites/pseuds/ALWrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/exolliarmus/pseuds/exolliarmus
Summary: If Chanyeol knows one thing, it’s that only he can be the best. To humiliate and obliterate his main rival, Byun Baekhyun, he turns to his potions textbooks for help, only for his plan to go not so horribly wrong.





	Weapons of Mass Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Weapons of Mass Distraction  
> Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol  
> Summary: If Chanyeol knows one thing, it’s that only he can be the best. To humiliate and obliterate his main rival, Byun Baekhyun, he turns to his potions textbooks for help, only for his plan to go not so horribly wrong.  
> Rating: M  
> Word Count: 7800  
> Author's Note: I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it! Thank you to my prompter for the awesome idea and to my amazing beta who came along and saved the day, as per usual!
> 
>  
> 
> If you enjoy this, please leave a comment!♥  
> ~Amy(ᵔᴥᵔ)
> 
>  

 

 

[(Link to AFF version) ](http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1288330/weapons-of-mass-distraction-fluff-exo-baekyeol-chanbaek-hpau)

 

 

When Chanyeol chuckles, his dramatic side gets the better of him and it comes out as more of a dastardly cackle. He sounds rather crazed and a lot like a maniac, but in truth his plan fulfils every dictionary definition of the word ‘wicked’. Oh, how he cannot wait to watch his nemesis fall from grace.

“ _Nice try, Park,”_ Chanyeol mocks in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, “ _but you’ll never be as good as me.”_ They are words stolen directly from the mouth of one Byun Baekhyun, a fellow seventh-year Ravenclaw and quite frankly the bane of his life. As if it isn’t bad enough that Baekhyun has an inherently loud presence in every room and corridor, providing headaches and handing out irritation for a living, he has also come to be Chanyeol’s main competitor in terms of academic achievements. Where once Chanyeol reigned supreme over his entire year of fellow students, claiming top marks on all tests, assessments and essays, the young upstart had to pop up some time last November and begin beating him to the punch – what a horrible way for Chanyeol to have to spend his birthday month.

With all that said, it is safe to admit that the main cause of Chanyeol’s stress is no longer simply getting good grades, but outdoing Byun Baekhyun. No matter how much revision he does, it always feels like it isn’t enough. A result above ninety percent is no longer satisfactory, because he _needs_ to be perfect. It has come to the point where Chanyeol really doesn’t care about how boring the topics are. If Baekhyun excels and forces him out of the running, he’ll never live it down.

It has been months – over a year, in fact – of anxious nail biting and hair pulling, working himself up over the incessant need to be better, better, better. And it’s not that he’s desperate for success. It’s not that he is worried about their upcoming test scheduled for the end of the week. It does not even have anything to do with the fact that he doesn’t really understand the content and is struggling to study. The only thing Chanyeol wants is for Baekhyun to suffer. Academically, of course.

Ever since Baekhyun humiliated him at the end of October with a crushing victory on a potions paper, Chanyeol has been gathering a certain set of ingredients. For a love potion. Amortentia, to be exact. Rose thorns, pearl dust, peppermint, powdered moonstone; he has been harbouring these for weeks, the only thing keeping his plan on hold being the absence of a hair from Professor Kim’s head – a necessary addition to the potion to ensure that Chanyeol himself is not the person Baekhyun falls irrevocably in ‘love’ with.

Professor Kim Jongdae is their Charms professor. Compared to Chanyeol, he is a rather short man but his loud voice and beaming smiles definitely makes up for it. He’s just over double their age, Chanyeol reckons, and, as far as he knows, is a single pringle ready to mingle. He can mingle with Baekhyun, in front of the whole class, the whole school, the whole world. Hopefully his plan will stir up such a ruckus that the Daily Prophet comes along to get the scoop too! For a moment, Chanyeol wonders if doing this would ruin Professor Kim’s reputation, but then again, it’s not as though Professor Kim will like Baekhyun back, so it’s all good really. What could possibly go wrong?

His potion is simmering nicely in the embrace of his cauldron, propped up over a small open fire he has dared to light in the out-of-order fourth-floor bathroom. Moaning Myrtle wasn’t very impressed, but when is she very impressed about anything? As Chanyeol peers down into the distinct, pearly liquid swirling in tones of ivory and blue, he takes a curious sniff and detects… dog? Chanyeol’s head jerks back in confusion as he stares at the liquid in suspect. Dog? Why is he smelling dog? Rubbing his chin, Chanyeol tries again, his inhale long and drawn out.

“Hmmm…” he hums. “Old textbooks.”

Apparently, Chanyeol finds dogs and old textbooks attractive. Interesting…

He waits only a little longer before deciding to just go for it, and he roots around in his backpack for the ladle and vial he brought. Maybe he can sell the rest of his potion off to other students. Perhaps Oh Sehun can finally use it to get into Kim Junmyeon’s pants. Or Kim Jongin can have his deepest, darkest fantasies come true – Kyungsoo noticing him. Nevertheless, he needs to test that the potion actually works first (not that he’s doubting his abilities, of course). He can’t have angry customers or a bad reputation, what would that do to his school image?

Ever so carefully, not wanting to spill even a drop, Chanyeol pours some of the silken liquid into his vial. With a cork stoppering the top, he’s good to go, giving himself the luxury of cackling one last wicked time before he heads to breakfast where his prey awaits.  

*

“Morning, Byun,” Chanyeol jeers, invading Baekhyun’s personal space and sliding onto the bench beside him. “You look exceptionally foul this morning. Up all night studying again? Waste of time, I say.”

Baekhyun glares at him, making a spectacle of putting some distance between them. “Waste of time?” he repeats back at him. “I don’t think your last Charms mock exam result would agree with you on that one.”

“Says Mr. A for Acceptable in Herbology.”

“Wow. Is that really all the material you have, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun sounds almost disappointed in him as he turns back to his beans on toast, elegantly using his knife and fork to cut himself a chunk or two. “Every time you bring that up, we get further and further away from when that exam actually happened. It was three years ago, Chanyeol. Suck it.”

Cackling, Chanyeol rocks his head back and glances up at the enchanted ceiling. “Oh, Baekhyun.” Joyously, he claps the boy on the back, accidentally causing him to choke a little bit and reach for his pumpkin juice. “My dear friend, Baekhyun. I have a feeling I am going to do exceptionally well in the potions mock this week.”

“I,” Baekhyun coughs, still choking a little, “I wouldn’t be so sure, Park.” While Baekhyun babbles on about how much revision he has done, Chanyeol casually pours himself a glass of pumpkin juice, making use of Baekhyun’s prattling distraction by pouring the love potion into his cup and switching them around. The so-called ‘smart’ Ravenclaw doesn’t even notice.

“…and I even went to Professor Kim yesterday for some extra lessons to broaden my knowledge even more, so my answers will be beyond what the textbooks offer now. I’m sorry, Chanyeol, but I think you should be used to me coming first from now on.” Confidently, Baekhyun side-eyes him as if he’s nothing but a nuisance and reaches for his goblet. Chanyeol can only watch in satisfaction as he downs the remainder his pumpkin juice in one go, taking the amortentia with it. “See you in Charms, Park.”

Chanyeol has to bite back his manic laughter as Baekhyun struts out of the Great Hall, completely oblivious to Chanyeol’s looming revenge.

The rest of the day is spent in eager anticipation. Chanyeol cannot wait for third period when he will finally get to see first-hand Baekhyun’s obsession over Professor Kim. Even though the potion should only last for approximately twenty-four hours, the memories of it should stay with Baekhyun for a long, long time, and if all goes to plan, it should ruin his future grade prospects forever.

Except, when Chanyeol gets to Charms and sees Baekhyun calmly going over something in his notebook with Professor Kim, nothing happens. There’s no desperate infatuation, no insane desire, no deranged obsession. There’s just Baekhyun casually pointing out something on his page and enquiring about to his teacher. They hardly even make eye contact, for crying out loud!

So Chanyeol sits down rather numbly, thinking about how he made the potion in painstaking detail. Did he get the measurements wrong? Did he mistake the units for different units by accident? Was it not left to brew for long enough? Was it even Professor Kim’s hair? As his confusion gets the better of him, Chanyeol starts to sweat. What did he do wrong? Why has it not worked? Oh God—what if _he_ drank the potion by accident?! Chanyeol stares at Professor Kim, waiting to feel some kind of attraction, but thankfully nothing of the sort pierces through the hysteria in his mind.

His plan has failed. The potion was not right. How will he ever humiliate Baekhyun now? His life… it’s over. All over… Bloody hell.

Maybe tomorrow it will work. Perhaps the potion hasn’t taken effect yet. Despite the fact that Chanyeol knows full well that amortentia is supposed to begin consuming the mind immediately, perhaps there has been a delay because he added Professor Kim’s hair, contradicting the traditional recipe? Well, he can hope (like an idiot, probably).

The day passes by rather dully after that. Chanyeol considers going up to Baekhyun and asking him if maybe he finds Professor Kim ‘really fit’ or if he wants to ‘jump his bones’ but he decides against it. For now, he shall wallow in the depths of the library and drown himself in his notes, stealing glares at Baekhyun through the stacks as the snotty Ravenclaw harasses the librarian for books upon books upon books.

It is not like he can catch a real break away from Baekhyun though. Naturally, Sod’s law decreed that they have to share a dorm.

“You seemed out of it in Charms today, Park,” Baekhyun grins as he strips of his top to put on his pyjamas. Chanyeol sneers at him. “Finally given up, have you? Took you long enough.”

Kyungsoo, one of their fellow bunkmates, snorts over a Sudoku puzzle. “You two really are so up yourselves.”

“No,” another bunk mate, Minseok, butts in from the water closet, toothbrush jammed between his molars, mouth surrounded by white foam. “They’re up each other.”

Chanyeol’s fists clench around his pillow as he violently plumps it – he needs to have a good night’s rest, otherwise he won’t properly absorb all the things he studied today, so his sacred brain must be appropriately supported.

“As if,” Baekhyun grunts, shooting a dirty glance at Chanyeol over his shoulder as he nimbly buttons up his loose tartan shirt. “Like I’d want to go anywhere near _him._ ”

Sighing, Chanyeol gets into bed and stares up at the ceiling, contemplating his life decisions. Where did it all go wrong? Why did the potion not work? And if it was faulty, does that mean that he doesn’t find dogs and old textbooks attractive after all?

“Lights out, guys,” Minseok chirps, turning down the gas lamps until the balls of fire only emulate a muted glow. “See you in the morning.”

Other pleasantries are exchanged, Chanyeol making an evident point of wishing everyone a cheerful goodnight except for Baekhyun, and then he shuts his eyes to finally get some rest.

*

Somehow, it is already tomorrow, though he doesn’t remember waking up. He is stood in an empty classroom, though he doesn’t ever remember coming here, fully dressed in his—pyjamas? Just when he’s starting to question his sanity, his eyes latch onto a movement in front of him, a jerky wipe of hands on trousers. It’s Baekhyun, and although Chanyeol is stood in clear view, he doesn’t appear to have noticed him yet.

His nemesis leans against the teacher’s desk – Professor Kim’s desk, to be exact – greedily chewing on his thumb nail. He comes across as anxious, eyes frequently skirting to the door and then back to his tapping foot, and Chanyeol supposes that he looks like he’s waiting for something. Or someone.

“Uh… Hey,” he calls out, taking a tentative step forwards. “What are you doing?”

Baekhyun doesn’t reply. In fact, Baekhyun doesn’t even seem to hear him, at which Chanyeol frowns.

“Oi, Byun!” he calls with irritation. “What’s going on—”

Before he can finish his sentence, the world suddenly turns into a mess of blurred, wonky lines and his head is spinning. “Sorry I’m late!” his own voice says, but his mouth doesn’t move. Everything goes completely black for a second before he is staring at the back of his own head and shoulders, walking towards an ecstatic looking Baekhyun who has perked up immensely at the sight of… him?

That’s him. He – Chanyeol – has just walked up to Baekhyun. But it’s also not him. Why are there two hims?

“Um… I don’t understand,” Chanyeol tries again, a plea for an explanation. Yet like the previous times, he’s unreservedly ignored. Or just not heard, maybe? He is about to speak up again when the other Chanyeol beats him to the chase. “Congratulations on scoring top in potions.”

To Chanyeol’s horror, the other Chanyeol then wraps his arms intimately around Baekhyun’s waist and leans him back over the desk, to the point where Baekhyun has to hold onto his neck to keep himself upright. Greatly perturbed, Chanyeol gapes on in horror. Why are they touching? Why is _he_ touching?

“You weren’t so bad yourself,” Baekhyun grins, _purring_ of all things, and then he tilts his chin up to align his lips with the other Chanyeol’s and they start kissing. There’s hands everywhere, desperate touches on hips and faces. There’s hair pulling, insistent tugs on Chanyeol’s black curls and eager strokes on Baekhyun’s auburn waves. There’s a lot of tongue, too, lips smushing together imperfectly to give Chanyeol the lovely view of what is happening inside. It looks very… Chanyeol doesn’t really want to think about what it looks like. All he can really comprehend at the moment is—

“I love you,” Baekhyun whispers softly against Chanyeol’s lips, and real-Chanyeol’s mind breaks down completely as he frantically screams “AHHHHH WHAT THE FUUUUUUUU—!”

He shoots up in bed, gasping for air after having shocked himself awake. “ _What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?”_ he chants to himself, patting his bed and then patting his body to make sure this is real and not another weird nightmare with Baekhyun in it. Wait—Baekhyun!

Chanyeol’s neck cracks in three different places from the sharp jolt of his head, and there is Byun Baekhyun, sleeping soundly… _writhing._

Is he having the same dream? But how can that be possible? How can two people have exactly the same dream? Unless it wasn’t Chanyeol’s dream at all. Chanyeol’s scrambled thoughts eventually narrow down on one plausible theory: The potion. This would explain why Baekhyun never went crazy over Professor Kim, but how has it managed to give Chanyeol access to Baekhyun’s very vivid and very lucid dreams? And Baekhyun said he loved him. Does that mean…?

Chanyeol’s neck cracks in only two places this time as his head jerks to face Baekhyun again. “He loves me,” he murmurs, trying to keep his volume low and his horror to a minimum. “ _What_ the _fuck?!_ ” And then Chanyeol flops back onto his bed, head cushioned by his pillow, and doesn’t get a wink of sleep for the rest of the night.

*

He can’t look Baekhyun in the eye after that. He can’t even look him in the… anything _._ He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to react. Baekhyun loves him. Baekhyun wants to kiss him. Baekhyun wants to touch him in private places. It all seems so preposterous! Aren’t they supposed to hate each other? They’re rivals! Nemeses! This isn’t what things are supposed to be like at all!

Every time he sees Baekhyun, whether it be a fleeting glimpse of him in the corridor or a full-on stare at the back of his head in lessons, Chanyeol is excruciatingly reminded of the dream. Baekhyun’s purring echoes in his ears like the cries of a little boy trapped at the bottom of a well, and the phrase ‘I love you’ rings in his mind like a migraine that won’t fade no matter what potion he takes to expel it from between his temples.

“Hey, Park!” Baekhyun hollers a few days later at breakfast, sliding into the seat opposite him with a giant, sort-of-attractive-but-not-really grin. “Been studying hard for Herbology? I bet I’ll beat you by at least ten marks.”

Believe it or not, Baekhyun is carrying on like normal, like nothing ever happened. Yet it _must_ have been his dream, there is no other explanation for it! How else could Chanyeol conjure up such wild… no, they’re not fantasies, he refuses to call them that. Images. How did he conjure up such bizarre images? And of Byun Baekhyun no less! Either it _was_ Baekhyun’s dream or there is something very, very, seriously wrong with him. And Chanyeol is never in the wrong. No, sir.

So while Baekhyun waits for a reply to their regular snarky banter, Chanyeol gapes at him like a fish seeing seaweed for the first time. His mind is crawling with questions and theories while his mouth faintly bobs open and closed, no words passing between his lips because he is just so damn confused. Bloody hell, what has Baekhyun done to him?

It disconcerts Baekhyun a little, but Chanyeol is pretty sure he’s only experiencing a fraction of the confusion that he is currently feeling. His nemesis continues to try to talk to him in vain, Chanyeol always staring back with a vacant expression on his face as if Baekhyun has suddenly started talking in a different language that nobody knows.

In the end, it takes about a week before Baekhyun stops trying to communicate with him. There are times when it looks as if he is about to sneer something across the classroom, maybe shout something in the hallway or whisper sharp insults from one bed to another in their dorm, yet he always bites them back at the last second, most likely realising that Chanyeol still ‘isn’t really there’.

Still stuck in a freeze-frame of sorts, Chanyeol only manages to break through one evening when he’s taking a shower in the third floor bathrooms. It’s rather late for washing so he seems to be all alone, and as he runs soap over his shoulders and chest he finally begins to coach himself through his discovery.

“So Baekhyun dreams about me,” he hums, looking up at the showerhead with furrowing brows. “How often?” he then wonders, beginning to run his soapy hands down his stomach to his hips. “And since when has he loved me?” Three weeks ago, if someone had told Chanyeol he’d be in the shower having this conversation with himself, he would have laughed in their faces and smacked them on the back so hard they’d faceplant the floor. Yet here he is, having the conversation, trying to make sense of it all.

“Does he dream about me like that all the time? How peculiar…” For all he knows, Byun has been having these dreams for years. If that be the case, how is he able to just wake up and pretend that everything is fine? How can he talk to Chanyeol without feeling the least bit shy or uncomfortable at the fact that he’s imagined him doing… _things_ in his dreams? Wait— _things?_ “Merlin’s beard!” Chanyeol gasps in horror. “What if there’s been… What if he’s… _imagined me naked_?” Feeling incredibly overexposed despite being in his own private shower cubicle and the only one in the whole bathroom, Chanyeol hurries to cover his body with his hands, hugging himself so that neither his modesty nor his nipples can be seen before he looks around accusingly. There’s no one watching him of course, but what might Baekhyun have pictured? Chanyeol shudders.

Nevertheless, despite his discoveries, Chanyeol decides to be a responsible adult about it. He turned eighteen three months ago, it is high time he started growing up. Where the fourteen-year-old him might have picked on Baekhyun for feeling such things, the person he is now takes a backseat so he can think about his own feelings; they are confusing at first, immensely so, but he finds that he must admit there has always been something pulling him towards Baekhyun. Perhaps it was the promise of healthy competition, perhaps it was because he liked to tease him, but it couldn’t be because he liked him as a person, could it?

“Hmmm,” Chanyeol’s vocal chords buzz again in the library a few days later, where he gazes quizzically up at the ceiling and tickles his chin with his quill. “What could it mean?” And for once, Chanyeol finds himself pressed with a question he simply cannot answer. Regrettably, his feelings are not logged down into a textbook, neither are methods of prevention or any contingency plans. He is surrounded by shelves upon shelves of books and not a single one is of any use to him. “ _Hmph_ ,” he grunts indignantly, dropping his gaze and continuing to scrawl down notes onto a scroll of parchment.

It takes several more days of endless pondering to really draw any semblance of a conclusion. He likes Baekhyun, yes, but in what way? From what he understands, there are multiple different ways you can like someone. You can like them as a friend, or as competition, or as more than a friend, yet which one is Baekhyun? While eating dinner alone one evening, he finds himself watching Baekhyun sat further down the table with Minseok and Kyungsoo, laughing about a (nerdy) joke one of them has probably just shared. For some reason, Baekhyun’s dinosaur-like laughing face and the way his palm thumps dramatically against the table is nice to look at, which doesn’t really make sense at all.  

“Hmmm…” Chanyeol narrows his eyes, fork stabbed in the middle of his gravy-filled Yorkshire pudding. “I guess I might be gay for Byun.” Then he returns to his food as if nothing ever happened.

Now comes the hard part: breaking it to Baekhyun. After many days of contemplation, Chanyeol has decided that yes, he _does_ like Baekhyun, and not just as his nemesis – though he would like to keep that dynamic if possible. It distracts him to no end, though, trying to figure out how to ‘confess’ or whatever it’s called. Should he do it over dinner for everyone to see? Or would that make Baekhyun uncomfortable? Should he do it in the dorm where it’s more private? Or would that make Baekhyun feel trapped in the situation? Should he send Baekhyun a note? Or would that make Baekhyun think it’s a joke?

But what if all of this really has just been that – a dream? What if it was a one-off thing? A fluke?

Well, there is only one way to be absolutely certain.

Chanyeol doesn’t cackle this time as he stirs new ingredients into his bubbling cauldron. In fact, he barely makes a single noise because he is so concentrated on making the potion wrong again. Meticulously, he does everything exactly the same as he did before – incorrectly – and prays that it’ll work. If Baekhyun doesn’t dream about him again, he will drop this whole shenanigan and leave it in his dust. If Baekhyun does dream about him, though, then Baekhyun is going to have one hell of a surprise. And it’s Park Chanyeol, so it’s an awesome surprise.

In the morning, he swings by the out-of-order fourth floor bathrooms just like planned and scoops up a small vial of his sacred potion. Life as he knows it rides on this seemingly insignificant drink, and no, he is not being dramatic at all. Chanyeol’s mind has been consumed by Baekhyun for nearly two weeks now, if it all turns out to be a false alarm he is going to be rather miffed – and will subsequently take that out on Baekhyun because they’re rivals and that’s what they do. Still, he clings to hope because for some reason he finds himself wanting to show up in Baekhyun’s dream again, and so he makes his way down to the great hall for breakfast where he drops onto the bench next to an unsuspecting Byun Baekhyun.

“Morning there,” Chanyeol grins, appearing to be back to his old self within just one night. Baekhyun looks at him like he’s grown an extra eye in the middle of his forehead, but a cyclops hybrid he is not. “I hope you’ve been cramming for your NEWTS, Byun. I sure have. Going to blow you straight out of the water.”

Baekhyun gawps at him while he starts shovelling crispy strips of bacon onto his plate. “U-Um.” Chanyeol then hears a stammer. “What’s been up with you these past few weeks? You’ve been really quiet and now you’re fine again?”

Chanyeol pauses his movements to coo inwardly over Baekhyun’s blatantly obvious concern. _So adorable!_ he almost squeaks out loud, swallowing the noise at the last second. “Oh, that. Well I was just concentrating, you know, to be better than you, the infamous Mr. A for Acceptable.”

“Oh shut up _,_ Park.” Baekhyun makes a show of rolling his eyes. “ _Honestly.”_

“Pass me the juice?” He grins devilishly, savouring Baekhyun’s overdramatic huff as he follows his request. Blink and you’d miss it, but now Chanyeol has poured his potion into Baekhyun’s drink. The vial, drained and dry, now lies dormant in his schoolbag. All that’s left to do now is wait.

Courteously, he thanks Baekhyun for the jug of pumpkin juice and pours himself a cup of victory before downing it all in one go. “You know, Byun, I’ve heard that getting plenty of sleep really helps you to soak in information.”

Baekhyun eyes him suspiciously. “Oh, have you?”

Nodding adamantly, Chanyeol slings his bag over his shoulder and prepares to leave. “I have indeedly!” he quips, rising to his feet and patting his nemesis on the shoulder. “Best go to sleep early tonight, eh? Absorb all that knowledge into your little five-foot-nine brain.”

“Oh, you bastard!” Baekhyun practically fumes, Chanyeol finally having his cackle as he merrily skips away. Height jokes really are the best.

He shares a total of three classes with Baekhyun that Friday; in each one of them he always makes sure to remind him to go to bed early, all the better to see his dreams – or if Chanyeol does happen to be in it, all the better to see a five-star movie. Once dinner is finally over, Chanyeol keeps one eye on the time and another on Byun, monitoring his movements like a spy or a legal stalker. It’s half past eight when Chanyeol catches him heading up to the common room, his nemesis indifferent to Peeves giving wedgies to some first years in the foyer. Even though he’s not a first year, Chanyeol sends him a withering _don’t you even think about it_ glare as he coolly saunters past, falling into step behind Baekhyun with about fifteen paces to spare.  

As he sees his prey round a corner and disappear for moment, Chanyeol does a little leap of exuberant joy that shocks the girl passing by into dropping all her books, not that he cares. This is it! he cries in his head. _Oh,_ he’s _excited!_ Just one more confession from Baekhyun and all will be a success!

“I see you’ve taken my advice!” Chanyeol bursts into their shared dorm five minutes later with loud volume and absent respect, startling a half-naked Baekhyun who is changing for bed.

“What? No!” he insists shrilly, then frowning as he slips his nightshirt over his shoulders to start buttoning it up down the front. “I’ve just had a long day, that’s all. I’m tired.”

Chanyeol chuckles knowingly under his breath, dumping his stuff by his bed, kicking off his shoes, and then stretching with dinosaur noises. “Sure, Byun. Whatever you say.”

“You know,” said Byun whips around, “I think I actually preferred it when you weren’t talking to me. Go back to whatever emo phase you were in just now, be moody and mysterious in the corner so I don’t have to hear you.”

Snorting, Chanyeol starts to strip, eyeing Baekhyun with a smirk when he sees his nemesis’ eyes accidentally skirt over at the wrong moment, seeing him in nothing but his boxers. If he’s not mistaken, Baekhyun appears to be blushing. How curious.

“Alright then, miserable,” Chanyeol sighs, feigning disappointment, “if that’s what you want. I am now going to go and mysteriously brush my teeth and have a moody wee, okay? All completely silent for your hearing pleasure.”

Baekhyun scoffs but encouragingly spits, “ _Thank you.”_ It’s adorable how he pretends to hate him. Chanyeol just wants to run up to him and squish his cheeks, maybe scratch behind his ears a little too, like a baby puppy! Come to think of it, Baekhyun has always been inexplicably cute. He’s exceptionally cute in winter though, when his nose is all red (and snotty) and his face is swamped by the giant Ravenclaw house scarf. As Chanyeol gets busy weeing, he randomly remembers that he used to tease Baekhyun for his knitted mittens, a strange thing to think about really when he’s holding his dick.

He returns from the water closet not long after to find Baekhyun already tucked up in bed, hugging the covers around his balled-up body with a remarkably sweet frown on his face. Chanyeol cannot deny that Baekhyun is, well, not that gross to look at. In fact, he would daresay that he is rather pleasing on the eyes, they would look good in pictures together, though Chanyeol would be the better looking of the two. Obviously.

With a contented sigh, he flops down onto his own bed, digs himself under the covers and shuts his eyes straight away. Come on dream, he beckons in his head. Come on, Baekhyun. Come on potion. However, despite his willingness to fall asleep, Chanyeol does not achieve his goal until sometime later, after both Minseok and Kyungsoo have barged into the dorm disruptively laughing about some fifth-year named Zhang Yixing who apparently didn’t know that showering in the girl’s bathroom was not allowed. If this was any other time, Chanyeol would be howling along with them, but he _needs_ to sleep. It is imperative that he catches Baekhyun’s dream in time; he requires a resolute confirmation that yes, the Byun is simply _infatuated_ with him.

Nevertheless, he begrudgingly listens to the ruckus his bunkmates create while they prepare for bed, apparently slamming the toilet lid on purpose and deliberately falling over a trunk just so they can cry out in pain. Very considerate. Yet after about twenty-five minutes, they belatedly settle down and Chanyeol is immersed in nothing but dark silence – and trepidation. Tightly, he scrunches his eyes shut and tries to think of absolutely nothing. Eventually, he starts to drift off.

*

The first thing he feels is sad. Drained, even, like he has just been in the presence of a dementor or two that have vanquished his only happiness. Next, his eyes tune in on his blurry surroundings, bringing them into focus to find dream-him walking into the great hall, much like earlier. Even though this isn’t his dream, the emotions within it still appear to be affecting him, making this escapade take a more serious turn than the last one had done. Hopefully that doesn’t spoil things.

Ever the inquisitive one, he follows his dream self to where he sits down on the bench beside Baekhyun with an air of fatigue, frown set deep and dark on his face as he stares glumly at the table. To see the dream-duo a little better, Chanyeol hops over the breakfast covered surface to perch on the opposite bench, watching with a thumping heart as dream-Baekhyun looks anxiously across at dream-him, spoon suspended in a bowl of cereal.

Baekhyun look exhausted for some reason, like he hasn’t had sleep in at least a week. The way he turns to face dream-him makes it seem like he’s about to cry, a desperate, kind of tormented look, swimming in his eyes. Chanyeol squints just to make sure he’s not missing anything, observing every last detail – even the slight milk moustache Baekhyun has on his upper lip.

“Are you alright, Yeol?” Baekhyun asks timidly, glancing down at his breakfast for a moment before looking innocently back up at a very miserable, very sullen looking seventh-year. Oh dear, dream-him really does look ghastly. This all seems to be a repeat of today’s events, yet Chanyeol is sure he didn’t look that way this morning when he greeted Baekhyun at breakfast. He was personally under the impression that he looked rather dashing. “Chanyeol, you… you haven’t spoken to me for a week now. Nine days, actually. Is everything okay?”

Baekhyun speaks in a tone Chanyeol has never encountered before. Shy and quiet, unsure and nervous. Never has the infamous Byun been so despondent.

Where in reality, Chanyeol had brushed Baekhyun off and told him he was fine (and especially dandy), the dream-him morosely shakes his head, still frowning, still sulking, still horrifically dismal. Baekhyun looks even more distraught at his answer, nibbling on his lower lip before he asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Again, Chanyeol only shakes his head.

Concern sinks into the lines of Baekhyun’s face, worrisome eyes flickering back and forth between dream-Chanyeol and dream-cereal. “Do you want to skip lessons today or something? We can just, I don’t know, try and cheer you up a little?”

Real-Chanyeol’s jaw drops at that, so immensely that it almost smacks into the table. “What the hell?” he whispers in awe and complete disbelief. Baekhyun, the goody-two-shoes, the ‘I’m the best at everything and all the teachers love me’ student, has just suggested they skip lessons. It might be a dream, but the principle is still there. Baekhyun would sacrifice his academics for—well, for _him_. _Woah._

“Yes,” Chanyeol hisses in excitement, glaring at his dream self with fierce eyes. “Nod your head. Say yes, you idiot. Let’s go have some alone time with the Byun.” And with a divine sadness, dream-Chanyeol woefully nods his head in agreement.

Real-Chanyeol punches the air in triumph, taking in Baekhyun’s attempt at a comforting smile and a gentle shoulder pat as the two of them climb from their seats and make to leave. He trails after them with a skip in his step all the way to the common room, narrowing his eyes with a juicy grin when he catches them linking their hands together as they head up the stairs to the dorm.

Still, although he’s exceptionally giggly at the fact that dream-him and dream-Baekhyun are completely alone now, his smile is somewhat dulled by the heavy atmosphere of the room. Could Baekhyun not have dreamt up something chirpier? Like them tormenting a teacher or sitting in the library together? Why does it have to resemble an overdramatic scene from a coming-of-age movie?

“Can you just reassure me before I go crazy,” Baekhyun shakily begins, holding his face in his hands as dream-Chanyeol takes a seat on his bed, “that it’s nothing serious. I mean, your family’s okay, right? And you’re in perfect health? You’re not in trouble for anything, are you? With the Ministry?”

Chanyeol’s stomach can’t help but swoop at the display, finding himself surprisingly moved. Could these have been Baekhyun’s thoughts for the past few weeks? Has he really been this worried? Now Chanyeol feels guilty, ridiculously so, for forcing him to live through such turbulence when there was nothing really wrong in the first place – besides the potion, of course. Struggling to swallow past a lump in his throat and with legs a little like jelly, he makes camp on Minseok’s bed and turns to watch what’s going on, taking in a deep breath when he sees dream-him hold out his hand to Baekhyun and guide him to where he can stand between his legs. The way he gazes up at Baekhyun, with so much awe in his eyes, kind of makes him want to cry.

“It’s nothing serious,” dream-Chanyeol whispers intimately, his chin almost resting on Baekhyun’s stomach. “I promise.” With a kiss to Baekhyun’s hand, he then reels him into a heartfelt hug, one with closed eyes and deep breathing. Looking at them now, Chanyeol doesn’t think they look like nemeses at all. In fact, he could even stretch as far as to say that they look like lovers, with the way Baekhyun moves to cup dream-Chanyeol’s face, affectionately grazing his thumbs back and forth as he stares longingly into his eyes.

“You have no idea how worried I’ve been about you,” he admits softly, his words making dream-him cling on tighter, pull him in closer until his neck is straining all the way back just to maintain eye contact. “I didn’t know how to make you talk to me. It wasn’t… It wasn’t my fault, right? This wasn’t about me?”

“No,” dream-him is quick to rebuke, slipping one hand down from Baekhyun’s hips to his thigh and urging him to straddle his lap. He waits until their faces are at the same level before he announces, “It was just some stuff with my parents. You know how they are.” Baekhyun hangs his head with a faint nod. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” With a little nose nuzzling, Baekhyun shyly peers up again, his hand clasping his opposite wrist against Chanyeol’s nape. “I really didn’t mean to. I just… needed some time to think, and I didn’t want to drag you into any of it because you’re my happy place. I know I probably didn’t execute my thinking in the best way but I, I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

After a gentle, understanding nod, Baekhyun presses their foreheads together and declares he that understands. “You can have as much time as you want,” he whispers, “so long as you always come back to me.”

Real-Chanyeol starts to suffocate from the cheesiness. What kind of romance novels has Baekhyun been reading in his spare time? Chanyeol doesn’t even think _Pride and Prejudice_ is as sloppy as this. Nevertheless, their dream conversation is still undeniably poetic and rather comforting, and Chanyeol wonders if the real Baekhyun would ever talk to him like this, ever devote himself so publicly.

Let’s face it, real-Chanyeol is nothing like this. He’s taunting and sharp, bordering on offensive, and doesn’t really feel a whole lot about anything because his nonchalant attitude is so horrendously severe. Even though this scene is tear-worthy and he may or may not be starting to well up just a little, Chanyeol doubts he would ever act like this is real life. That’s what dreams of for, he supposes.

“You mean so much to me,” his dream self then whispers, his own tears chased away with an ugly cringe. Merlin’s beard, this is getting a little painful to watch, he can practically _smell_ the cheese by now, but at least he has sort of confirmed that Baekhyun is head over heels for his non-existent arse. “I’m so sorry for hurting you,” dream-Chanyeol closes his eyes as if he’s in pain, “please forgive me.”

Baekhyun seems close to tears, combing insistently through Chanyeol’s hair and boring into his eyes. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he blubbers, and then he dives forward to meet Chanyeol’s lips with a kiss.

There is something oddly satisfying about the way their mouths fit together. Real-Chanyeol squints to try and zoom in at the layering of lips, smacking and puckering his own in an attempt to emulate the feeling. He watches the repositioning with great interest, examining the techniques, analysing the angles, memorising where his dream self’s hands are when Baekhyun sighs and leans further into him.

And then it gets hotter. Sticking true to the unrealistic coming-of-age movie trope, they start to make out and grind on each other, which seems completely disconnected from before when they were having a sincere, emotionally-charged heart-to-heart. But as Chanyeol now knows, in dreams, you just have to roll with it, so he rolls along with it in time with the gyration of Baekhyun’s hips on his dream self’s growing erection. Oh… If things get even further, what will Baekhyun have imagined his dick to look like? So intrigued to the point where he can’t sit still, a quietly ashamed Chanyeol awkwardly scuttles closer to the scene just as Baekhyun is reaching down to undo the fly on his dream self’s school trousers, then asking him if it’s okay.

“Of course it’s fucking okay!” real-him hisses frantically, eyes wide and ardent as he waits for dream-him to nod his head. If there’s one thing he did not expect to see coming into this dream, it was a blowjob, and if there’s one thing he refuses to leave this dream without seeing, it is also a blowjob. Isn’t it funny how some things play out?

“Nghh,” dream-him moans lewdly when Baekhyun takes him in his hand, “Baek…”

Grimacing, Chanyeol watches the dream-duo with folded arms and prays that his dream self doesn’t make another dramatized noise as it’s very off-putting. He would normally dwell on it more, whinge about how Baekhyun has imagined him sounding so needy when, hello, he is a strong, independent and one hell of an intelligent man, but then the subject of his rather ironically growing affections is sliding from dream-Chanyeol’s lap and kneeling between his legs on the floor.

Is this classed as voyeurism? And, is he a pervert now? There’s nothing wrong with being curious, is there? Baek-curious, to be exact. Staring intently down from a bird’s eye position, Chanyeol’s blood starts to thump in his ears as Baekhyun pulls his dream-dick out. Surprisingly, it looks rather like his real dick, which raises a few suspicious questions in Chanyeol’s mind but he’ll save those for later.

If watching Baekhyun starting to lick around his head is spellbinding, watching him start to take cock in his mouth is simply transfixing. Dream-him appears to love it, clawing a hand through Baekhyun’s hair while he throws his head back and groans long and deep. Baekhyun’s mouth bobs up and down to the sound of faint panting and wet sucking, his fingers pinched around the base in order to keep it steady. With where this has ended up, Chanyeol thinks he should be moody more often.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to see himself come (because, yes, he sort of would like to see Baekhyun swallow). However, his disappointment is only short-lived when dream-him gathers his lover up in his arms and throws him back on the bed.

“Bloody hell,” real-Chanyeol whispers, absent-mindedly fondling his own erection through his trousers. “Are we going to—”

As soon as Baekhyun’s broken moans sound through the room, Chanyeol’s vision starts to fade. The world tilts and shifts until things distort into a blur, the image of his dream self grinding his hips down onto Baekhyun’s thigh getting further and further away as a last broken cry fades into nothing. Everything goes dark, the scene over before any of the good stuff has started, and Chanyeol shoots up in bed with a hot sweat drenching his nightshirt and a very inconvenient boner poking up from under his duvet. It’s safe to say that he’s unsatisfied, but in retrospect, he got what he wanted: Confirmation. Baekhyun likes him. Baekhyun wants to touch his dick. And in that moment where he’s processing all of his findings, he hears a sharp gasp from across the dorm and finds Baekhyun sitting bolt upright too, gasping for air and staring down at a pointed bump in his blankets. Chanyeol’s brain short-circuits in that instant, eyes noticing how nice Baekhyun’s hair looks when it’s wet and how his shirt has slipped off one shoulder, bearing the hint of a nipple, so he sits there and scares the living daylights out of everyone when he stares at Baekhyun’s boner and valiantly shouts, “I dick you!” instead of ‘I like you’.

Baekhyun gapes at him, Minseok screams as he wakes up just long enough to tell him to _shut the fuck up, it’s bedtime_ while Kyungsoo continues to snore, body spread like a starfish half off his bed.

“I—I didn’t mean that!” Chanyeol stammers, eyes bulging with worry as he holds his hands out to Baekhyun as if to make it better with a few crazy movements. “Well I do—I do want to dick you but not right now—not, not before we, not before I—I just mean.” Belatedly, Chanyeol takes a deep breath to slow himself down. “I just mean, I like you.”

“ _What?!”_ Baekhyun squawks like a screaming parrot, grabbing his pillow and wincing when he forces it down on his problem a little too hard.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol declares, offhandedly wondering how he was sneering at how cheesy the dream was when this real life situation is even worse, “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now.” For some reason, he also thinks it’s a good idea to get out of bed and walk to Baekhyun’s bedside, his boner still very much evident inside his boxers and pointing Baekhyun square in the face. “I like you.”

His nemesis gulps, appearing as though he’s trying to force himself not to look a little (a torso’s length, really) south of Chanyeol’s face.  “What’s gotten into you, Park? Have you lost your mind?”

“ _Yes!”_ Chanyeol whisper shouts, then climbing into bed with him. “I _have_ lost my mind!” he practically cries, crawling over Baekhyun’s body and cornering him against one of the bed posts. “Because of you! You’re the reason I’ve lost my mind!”

Baekhyun shoots a look to the sky and whimpers, “ _What the fuck is happening?”_

“Baekhyun, I would like to help you with your boner,” announces a deadly serious Chanyeol.

Baekhyun screams.

*

It’s hard to say whether or not Chanyeol left Baekhyun mentally scarred after that night, but what he _can_ say is that he did manage to wheedle a confession out of him. It was a quiet whisper of “ _Fine._ Yes. I _do_ like you,” alongside the muted chuckle of Chanyeol’s teasing.

“Oh, Baekhyun,” he cooed, “I bet you just started to try hard in exams to get my attention, didn’t you?” With a bop on the nose, Chanyeol had meant it as a tension-easing joke. He wasn’t expecting the shy squeak of “M- _Maybe_.”

Nevertheless, although they remain nemeses in lessons and exam halls, their ankles now hug when they sit in the library to study together, and before bed, they sloppily kiss each other goodnight with extra tongue just to piss off Minseok – he has an irrational fear of sharing bodily fluids, apparently, but that’s not their problem. And though their banter has been greatly watered down and Chanyeol has finally stopped calling Baekhyun Mr. A for Acceptable in Herbology, he has been cunning enough to find a new way to distract his one and only rival into failure.

He kisses him.

All over his body.

Even on the butt.

And, boy, does it work better than any potion out there. Even the ones made incorrectly.

*

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**Author's Note:**

> **Please note that I do not want constructive criticism. Please do not share negative opinions or thoughts about this story in the comments, in bookmarks or on Twitter. Thank you :)**


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